Zimbabwe's President Mr Robert Mugabe ended his campaign for the weekend elections today with a confident prediction of victory and an attack on former colonial power Britain.
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MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai addresses a rally in the industrial area of Harare today. Photograph: Reuters
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As President Mugabe exuded confidence at his final campaign rally and mocked his challenger, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai as a British puppet, the opposition alleged the brief abduction of 40 of its polling agents in new intimidation intended to rig the vote.
Addressing more than 15,000 supporters at Bindura, northeast of Harare, Mr Mugabe returned to the favourite theme of his campaign, that Britain was trying to recolonise Zimbabwe through Mr Tsvangirai.
He launched a bitter personal attack on Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair, calling him an "arrogant little fellow" and promising: "We will bury (the opposition's) sponsor. Mr Blair will have a political burial here tomorrow."
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change said earlier about 100 militants from President Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party surrounded and abducted 40 MDC polling agents in Harare and handed them over to police.
Police gave a different version of events, saying they had detained some 20 MDC polling agents after one was found with a firearm during clashes with ZANU-PF supporters. The MDC agents were quickly released, the police said.
Mr Tsvangirai accuses President Mugabe (78) of using violence, intimidation, special laws and dirty tricks to fix the two-day election, in which the president faces his toughest challenge since independence in 1980.
But at his rally, the 50th of his campaign, President Mugabe blamed the MDC for the violence. Independent monitors say 33 people have died this year alone, most of them opposition supporters. He also scoffed at opinion polls predicting his defeat.
Mr Reginald Matchaba-Hove, chairman of an independent body promoting fair elections, said today around 420 of its observers had been accredited so far out of the 12,000 it wanted. He said this was "absolutely inadequate".
With 24 hours to go, many details of polling arrangements were still unclear. While MDC said the voters roll is a shambles, with 50,000 dead people registered.